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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2204

As he sits stroking his Rip Van Winkle-worthy beard, it’s easy to see how de Grey’s achieved this “kind of a spiritual leader-status,” as he calls it. He dives easily into intricate explanations of two research projects unfolding in the lab down the hall, eagerly describing how one studies mitochondrial mutations, which are thought to cause an increase in oxidative stress. The other looks at atherosclerosis, the narrowing and hardening of artery walls. If we understood more about this buildup, the logic goes, we could better clean it up before too much damage is done.

Though he attends lab meetings and oversees the SENS’s research, his primary task is convincing the general public that death is, in fact, bad and that we should be doing everything we can to stop it. This focus on messaging suits him just fine. “I’m not in this to do science for the sake of doing science,” he says. “I’m in it for the ultimate goal.” He does a “ridiculous” amount of media, he says, and gives around 50 talks a year, from Vietnam to the Czech Republic.

Back in April, at a San Francisco blockchain conference called Block 2 the Future, de Grey began his talk with a disclaimer: “I probably ought to start by emphasizing that I don’t know fuck-all about cryptocurrencies. I am really only here because I have apparently quite a significant fan base in this community, and I am delighted that I do.”

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Being able to measure, and monitor, temperatures and temperature changes at miniscule scales—inside a cell or in micro and nano-electronic components—has the potential to impact many areas of research from disease detection to a major challenge of modern computation and communication technologies, how to measure scalability and performance in electronic components.

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In air-breathing vertebrates, the circulatory and pulmonary systems contain separate networks of channels that intertwine but do not intersect with each other. Recreating such structures within cell-compatible materials has been a major challenge; even a single vasculature system can be a burden to create. Grigoryan et al. show that natural and synthetic food dyes can be used as photoabsorbers that enable stereolithographic production of hydrogels containing intricate and functional vascular architectures. Using this approach, they demonstrate functional vascular topologies for studies of fluid mixers, valves, intervascular transport, nutrient delivery, and host engraftment.

Science, this issue p. 458

Solid organs transport fluids through distinct vascular networks that are biophysically and biochemically entangled, creating complex three-dimensional (3D) transport regimes that have remained difficult to produce and study. We establish intravascular and multivascular design freedoms with photopolymerizable hydrogels by using food dye additives as biocompatible yet potent photoabsorbers for projection stereolithography. We demonstrate monolithic transparent hydrogels, produced in minutes, comprising efficient intravascular 3D fluid mixers and functional bicuspid valves. We further elaborate entangled vascular networks from space-filling mathematical topologies and explore the oxygenation and flow of human red blood cells during tidal ventilation and distension of a proximate airway. In addition, we deploy structured biodegradable hydrogel carriers in a rodent model of chronic liver injury to highlight the potential translational utility of this materials innovation.

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As we dive into the brave new world of gene editing, CRISPR technologies are undoubtedly becoming increasingly precise, but alongside enhanced precision is also the necessity for developing ways to inhibit or block the process – an anti-CRISPR molecule, if you will. New work from the Broad Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital has presented a study that homes in on small molecules that may have the ability to safely block the CRISPR gene editing process.

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If you take a look at the life of freshwater shrimp in the sleepy English countryside, you’ll find enough drugs to keep a funk band on tour very happy.

A new study has found notable levels of cocaine, ketamine, Valium, Xanax, t ramadol, and other pharmaceuticals in the bodies of freshwater shrimp and their habitat in Suffolk, UK. The researchers also found traces of numerous pesticides that are now banned by the EU.

Reporting in the journal Environment International, scientists from King’s College London analyzed levels of micropollutants in surface water samples and Gammarus pulex freshwater shrimp from 15 different sites across the county of Suffolk in the east of England. To their surprise, they discovered trace levels of at least 67 different contaminant compounds. The most frequently detected contaminant was cocaine, which was detected in every single shrimp from all 15 sites.

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An end to the AIDS epidemic could be in sight after a landmark study found men whose HIV infection was fully suppressed by antiretroviral drugs had no chance of infecting their partner.

The success of the medicine means that if everyone with HIV were fully treated, there would be no further infections.

Among nearly 1,000 male couples across Europe where one partner with HIV was receiving treatment to suppress the virus, there were no cases of transmission of the infection to the HIV-negative partner during sex without a condom. Although 15 men were infected with HIV during the eight-year study, DNA testing proved that was through sex with someone other than their partner who was not on treatment.


Given the chance, there are very few of us who wouldn’t want to slow down the aging process. Chasing that fountain of youth is a major branch of medical science at the moment, and a hardy little worm known as C. elegans is probably the most prolific test subject. Now, a team at Scripps Research has found that blocking a particular enzyme can extend the lifespan of these worms by almost half again.

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Today, we want to spotlight a new publication that charts the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP), which consists of the various secreted signals given out by senescent cells during aging.

Senescent cells and the SASP

As we get older, an increasing number of our cells enter into a state known as senescence. They cease dividing and supporting the tissues and organs of which they are part and, instead, secrete a range of harmful chemical signals. This cocktail of harmful signals is known as the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP).

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